George asked for the names of military heroes. I give him the name of Thomas Mack Wilhoite in this note. He had a ship named after him, the U.S.S. Wilhoite, DE-397, a destroyer escort.
Thomas Mack Wilhoite enlisted in the Naval Reserve at Guthrie, Kentucky, in 1941 at the age of 20. After indoctrination training he was sent to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida, where he was appointed a naval aviator on 6 Feb 1942. With his new commission, he reported for Advanced Carrier Training at Norfolk. By the fall of the year he was on the U.S.S. Ranger, a carrier assigned to the invasion of North Africa.
Flying an F4F-4 Wildcat, Wilhoite and others were assigned to attack the Vichy French airdrome at Rabat-Sale, the headquarters of the Vichy French air forces in Morocco. He pressed a determined attack and put three bombers afire. His second attack, later in the day, was against the Port Lyautey airdrome. For the third attack of the day he was sent against another airfield and its planes. He destroyed one fighter before he was hit by the intense flak of the ground gunners and he crashed without any chance of escape. In all of these attacks, the method was to strafe the enemy airplanes requiring him to approach very close to them and to the ground.
Wilhoite received the Silver Star posthumously for displaying "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity" during the strikes. His "superb airmanship and tenacious devotion to duty" were also mentioned.
The keel for the DE-397 was laid 4 August 1943 and was commissioned on 16 December of that year with Lt. Eli Roth in command. In two months, the Wilhoite was on convoy duty to Gibraltar. A major duty of destroyer escorts was to provide protection for merchant ships against enemy submarines. The ship was supplied with radar, sonar, and other electronic countermeasures. Its principal weapon was depth charges. Destroyer escorts also served as the outermost contact points for military convoys to provide early detection of enemy submarines, aircraft, and ships.
Throughout the year 1944, the Wilhoite served in the Atlantic Ocean. At the end of European hostilities, she passed through the Panama Canal to join the Pacific fleet. Without any significant action in the Pacific, the Wilhoite was decommissioned on 19 June 1946. Reactivated in 1954, the Wilhoite went to serve in various activities until 1969 when she was retired with seven battle stars.
(08 Nov 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.